


Rare Gifts and Gouts of Blood

by Aech_Left



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Dies, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Brutal Murder, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Despair, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Feelings, Graphic Description, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Heartbreak, Hurt, Kidnapping, M/M, Pain, Punishment, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27965711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aech_Left/pseuds/Aech_Left
Summary: Where Hannibal and Will’s last supper goes a bit differently. Kind of a character/relationship study. Hannibal is lovesick and upset about Will’s betrayal. The only reasonable reaction to that transgression is to maim Will and kill their daughter right?Very dramatic.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Rare Gifts and Gouts of Blood

It’s the night before the plan is supposed to go down and Hannibal feels a hole growing in his chest as he stares down into his glass of red wine. He considers his reflection and can see his own discontent rippling across the surface. “Do you know what an imago is, Will?” He tears his attention away from the glass to look at his friend.

“It’s a flying insect,” Will responds, normally Hannibal would smirk or find humor in this response. His words are just the bare bones of the true meaning Hannibal is trying to convey. 

“It’s the final stage of a transformation, maturity.” He furthers.

”When you become who you will be.” Will nods, raising the glass to his lips and sipping.

”It's also a term for the dead religion of psychoanalysis. An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives.” Hannibal watches Will consider it, reflecting perhaps, as he swirls the wine in his glass.

”An ideal.” Will suggests.

”The concept of an ideal always searching for an objective reality to match. I have a concept of you just as you have a concept of me.” He notices the way Will shifts in his seat, a physical reflection of how he feels inside, about lying to Hannibal. At least he's uncomfortable with his foolish acts of falsity.

Will takes a larger drink, swallowing his feelings about the matter. ”Neither of us ideal.” Will doesn't make eye contact now, but Hannibal maintains a steady gaze upon him. 

“We are both too curious about too many things for any ideals.” He was too enticed by the ideal of Will that the scent of betrayal had to backhand him for him to see it clearly. Nearly as blind as poor Alana Bloom. “Is it ideal that Jack die?” He casts his line, fishing.

Will hesitates, it's almost completely unnoticeable but Hannibal catches it and his head tilts slightly down in disappointment, chin a half-inch closer to his chest. ”It’s necessary. What happens to Jack has been preordained.” _What happens to you is necessary._ Hannibal feels it, Will is much like himself, telling the truth but concealing it inside a lie.

“We could disappear now. Tonight. Feed your dogs. Leave a note for Alana, never see her or Jack again. Almost polite.” He swallows, silently begging for Will to stop the charade.

“This would be our last supper.” Will almost chuckles, a sad smile twisting at his lips. He even considers it, however, momentarily. 

“Of this life.” He pauses, feeling forlorn. “I’ve served lamb.” He leads.

“Sacrificial?” His eyes fall to the twin pair of lamb racks, it’s interlacing ribs like the hands of prayer at a church’s steeple.

“I freely claim my sin, I don’t need a sacrifice. Do you?” He watches Will run his finger up and down the neck of the glass in a repetitive manner, soothing himself.

“I need him to know.” He takes a breath, “if I confessed to Jack Crawford now…” His voice thickens, tense.

“-I would forgive you.” Hannibal professes, if Will were to confess his transgressions now, admit his farce, Hannibal could forgive it without dealing punishment. This draws hesitant eyes back to his own. “If Jack were to tell you all is forgiven, would you accept his forgiveness?”

“Jack isn’t offering forgiveness. He wants justice,” _I want Justice._ “He wants to see you. See who you are. See who I’ve become. Know the truth.” _I don’t want to see you, see who I’ve become, I hate the truth._ Hannibal hears Will’s real thoughts burning through pages and bleeding in between the lines.

“To the truth then, and all its consequences.” Hannibal resigns, he has given Will every opportunity to come clean. Tears threaten to brim at his eyes, blurring his vision, this was not how he would’ve liked for this to go. A silence falls over them as they drink their wine, Hannibal finds that his own has gone bitter with his distaste for this conversation and how the night will end. “Will, would you mind starting the dishes? I’ll join you in just a moment.” He asks, his palms clasped together just the edge of too tight, fingers whitening from the pressure.

“Of course.” Will smiles with that now obvious deceiving glint in his eyes. Hannibal stacks their plates and passes them to his dinner guest. He pretends to collect their glasses but stops once Will is out of view and turns to exit the dining room. Hannibal rubs his thumb and forefinger together in an uncharacteristic break in the carefully crafted facade as he approaches one of his locked guest rooms. He unlocks it and bright blue eyes dart up to him, “It’s time.” He smiles at her but he knows the disappointment must still be prevalent in his eyes. She does as instructed regardless and Hannibal goes back to the dining room alone, waiting. He removes his suit jacket and lays it over Will’s chair, he picks up Will’s unfinished glass of wine. He finishes it off once he hears the water from the faucet come to a halt.

Will stands in the kitchen, the false smile falling from his face, he shouldn’t feel so conflicted. He feels like a horrible liar, a horrible friend as he begins to wash the dishes. He glances around the room when something catches his attention in his peripheral vision, his eyes blow wide in surprise and confusion, he must be hallucinating. “Abigail?” It hardly comes out as even a whisper.

“I didn’t know what to do... so I just did what he told me.” Tears fill her eyes upon seeing him again. He moves around the counter to touch her, make sure she’s really there but he notices the way her eyes flick to the side, looking behind him. A sudden and raw desperate feeling overwhelms him. Run. He turns around on his heels and he’s pulled against Hannibal’s chest.

“Will, you’ve been lying to me.” His voice is full of emotion, wavering like the very beginnings of a meltdown. 

“Abigail is-?” He can't finish his sentence, he wonders if he’ll be told no one is there, that it’s just the two of them in the kitchen.

“Alive.” Hannibal finishes for him, confirming his eyes. “A place was made for Abigail in the world, a place for all three of us. Together. I wanted to surprise you...” Will feels a dreadful _‘but’_ coming, the twist. “-and you wanted to surprise me.” The last half feels like a punch to the gut and his heart drops to his feet. A tingling develops in his hands and feet in anticipation, in fear of what will happen next. Hannibal cups Will’s face in his hands, like he’s something precious and fragile. He brushes the loose strands from his face to just look at him for a moment before he has to do what must be done.

Will doesn’t even notice when one hand disappears from his face, shell-shocked and uncomprehending. He hears Abigail gasp as a sharp and sudden tearing pain blooms on his abdomen, he looks down and sees the curved blade glide across his belly to open him up. He shifts to grasp at himself but Hannibal pulls him closer, pressing his cheek to the side of Will’s head as he embraces him. Will’s hands sprawl for purchase as he cries out, dragging across Hannibal’s rapidly reddening shirt and catching on his vest so harshly that it snags and pulls a button loose. “Time has reversed, the teacup that I shattered dared to come together.” He clutches Will to him, eyes briefly flitting over to Abigail who is openly sobbing before closing, a single tear managing to pass through his lashes and roll down his cheek. 

He drops Will, the man staggering backward and hitting the wall with a thump before sliding down and leaving a smear on the cobalt blue wall. Will’s body is starting to shake but he fights to stay present and keep shock at bay. “I let you in. I let you know me... _see me,”_ he grips the curved ham knife tighter as he pours his broken heart out to his bleeding beloved. 

“You wanted to be seen.” Will chokes it out in stuttering breaths, his own hot blood coating his hands and innards pressing at the seam of his slice.

“By you. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.” Hannibal’s mouth is downturned and his chin trembles.

“Didn’t I?” Will has an expression of grief and something else as he hopes to get across what he’s feeling. He was never certain he would go through with it. Deep down he didn’t want to and might’ve changed his mind but he can’t manage that many words right now so he hopes to convey it with his eyes and face alone. His eyebrows are knitted and upturned like a kicked dog, he looks to Hannibal, the man is bloodied and sadness molds his features. 

Hannibal’s expression twists as anger takes over at Will’s gall, the audacity to say that, to look at him like that as if he isn’t the betrayer. “You would deny me my life?” Will feels like the bad guy even though he isn’t the serial killer, even though he’s the one bleeding out on the floor and Hannibal is holding the knife.

“Not your life.” Will forces the words out, feeling guilty about how much he’s upset the man who’s become his mentor, friend, and close confidant.

A sickening malice laces his words, “My freedom, then. You’d take that from me. Confine me to a prison cell,” it cuts deeper than the blade did previously. Will shudders, sliding further down as he slips in his own blood. “Do you believe you could change me, the way I’ve changed you?” Hannibal’s lip quivers now, anger and despair eating him away like he hasn’t felt since he was a boy with his little sister Mischa warming his belly.

“I already did.” His voice is hoarse and choked. Hannibal regards him for a moment frozen in time, realizing fully that Will is right. No one else would bring him to the brink like this, he’d been ignoring it, possibly hoping that by doing so it would become an untruth. He’s known since the beginning, Will planted a seed inside him and it sprouted into a nasty little thing, cruel and unwieldy. Unruly beasts get beat and Hannibal certainly feels beaten. “Fate and circumstance have returned us to the moment the teacup shatters. I forgive you, Will.” He stakes just one small step forward and looks mournfully down at Will before lifting his head and turning himself towards Abigail. He holds his hand out and opens his body language so that it’s warmer and more welcoming to their surrogate child.

“Abigail, come to me.” He sees the horror starting to click in her eyes, she made a devil's bargain and it’s time to pay up. Her body seems to move of its own volition without hesitation, so conditioned to trust in him completely. Her breath hiccups as she’s held firmly in his arms, feeling like a mouse in the lion’s jaws. A bird is bashing itself dead against the wrought iron bars of a cage inside her skull. He speaks again and it rings clear to his intentions. “Will you forgive me?” She knows, Will knows. She’s being used as a tool to dole out punishment.

“-no no no, _don’t-”_ Will’s words are sputtered out and weak as he desperately pleads for Hannibal to be merciful. When is Hannibal ever merciful? The blade slashes across her neck, right through the scar her father left there in very similar circumstances. The look in her eyes is that of a child, scared and unable to do anything to protest the events transpiring around her. He reaches out as Hannibal practically shoves her away with a disturbing lack of love, care, or even pity. “No!” He shouts and scrambles over to her even as the searing pain in his abdomen is intensified. Blood smears everywhere and he struggles to get over to her across the blood-slick tile. His breath is haggard and shallow as he presses his hand to her neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding, her life leaks right between his fingers. She isn’t even seeing anymore as she coughs, her pale blue eyes straight up at the ceiling even as her hands absently move without any more purpose.

Hannibal just watches as Will struggles and fails to do anything about the lethal slit across her throat. He waits until her movement is completely gone, a perfect stillness. She looks like a doll, Will still grasps at her but there’s nothing to come of it. Will pulls back slightly with a sob wracking his body and tries to gather Abigail up in his arms. “You can make it all go away. Put your head back. Close your eyes. Wade into the quiet of the stream.” He sets the knife down onto the marble counter, done. Will tries to fight the darkness seeping into his vision but his eyelids fall shut and he collapses backward onto the floor. Hannibal leans down to them and picks Will up, carefully cradling him. 

He takes him up the stairs and into the first spare bedroom. He fetches equipment from the cellar and gets to work fixing up his beloved. No stress reliever like well-practiced clinical care. He had plenty of blood that would be usable but figured Abigail’s would be more poetic. He drained out what hadn’t just been spilled all over his kitchen and gave it to Will intravenously. He’d known it was fate that Will and Abigail shared the same blood type. It’s a painstaking and slow process but eventually, he has Will Graham back together again. There will be a scar, proof of his betrayal, and his punishment.

He won’t get much sleep tonight. He takes Abigail down to the cellar and puts her into the refrigerator, she’ll be buried tomorrow. Will might forgive him for killing her, he wouldn’t forgive him if he ate her. She isn’t a pig and her flavour would be marred by her horror, he’d be able to taste her shock and desperation. A place has still been made for her in Will’s world, however, her grave will become a place for Will to sit and reflect. He’ll be able to talk to her, secure in the intimate knowledge of her demise unlike before when she was missing save for the ear. Eventually, it won’t hurt Will so much to think about, he’ll come to understand why it had to happen. Hannibal sets to work cleaning the kitchen, it will be easier to clean while it’s still somewhat wet. In the morning he’ll take Will and Abigail to the bluff, to their new home and her resting place.

—-

When Will wakes up he feels loose-limbed and floaty. He isn’t in a hospital. Is he dead? He decides that if he is then it must be hell because everything around him has a Hannibal-esque appearance. “Fancy Hell...” He mumbles. Of course, Lucifer would be just as pretentious as his human incarnate. He almost has a bubble of a laugh working its way up to his throat when he sees the ornate accented door open and when Hannibal enters it dies on the back of his tongue. The devil in a man’s skin almost imperceptibly pauses, he must not have expected to see Will awake and partially lucid.

“Good afternoon, Will.” He doesn’t miss a beat, approaching calmly and seeing obvious confusion on the younger man’s face. “Do you remember what happened?” He questions, checking the IV’s and making sure Will hasn’t fussed with anything. It seems he hasn’t.

Things look to process some more for Will and the confusion only grows in intensity. “Why am I alive?” He almost sounds disappointed that he’s been allowed to live on.

“Did you think I intended to kill you?” Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed.

“You gutted me.” His voice lacks any force, the painkillers are strong and he’s drifting.

“I did cut you but you haven’t been disemboweled, Will, everything is still right where it belongs.” He corrects the dazed and drugged profiler.

“Abigail.” It’s just a word, Will isn’t quite here, he’s not ready for this conversation yet. 

“Go back to sleep, Will. It’s alright.” He pets him, soft brunette curls are like satin under his fingertips. Stormy grey blues are quickly obscured by lids and eyelashes as he fades back into drug-induced oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot of fun to write, please let me know what you think. Kudos and Comments are greatly appreciated!
> 
> I might continue this but idk.


End file.
